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September 28, 2011

G162: Orioles 4, Red Sox 3

Robert Andino's line drive single falls in front of Carl Crawford in left field, and as Crawford fails to field the ball cleanly, Nolan Reimold scores the game-winning run. Jonathan Papelbon - entrusted with a 3-2 lead at the start of the inning - struck out the first two batters, but gave up a first-pitch double to right to Chris Davis, an RBI-double to right-center to Reimold, and Andino's game-winning single. (Shades of his meltdown in Game 3 of the 2009 ALDS.)

12:06 AM:

Evan Longoria lined a solo home run just inside the left field foul pole in the bottom of the 12th inning to win the AL wild card for the Rays. Longoria had hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning, when Tampa, down by seven runs with only six outs to go, began its unlikely comeback. (Nice work by Girardi to leave Proctor out there until he lost the game. The Assman faced the most batters (13) and threw the most pitches (56) of the 11 Yankee pitchers in the game.)

Lester will start on three days rest for only the second time in his major league career. His first short-rest start was on April 23, 2008, against the Angels at Fenway Park. Lester (5-9-4-2-1, 80) got a ND, and Boston lost the game 6-4.

Last Saturday in New York, Lester threw only 55 pitches before being lifted. Over his last eight starts, there has been a drastic decline in his performance. Lester says he is neither hurt nor worn down from the long season, so let's hope this string of bad luck (or poor concentration or whatever the hell it is) turns around.

This was the 2011 Red Sox, with their own story of utter disappointment and collapse.

If we are drawing comparisons to anything in recent sports memory, purely in terms of spectacular failure, I am hoping this series of events works out for the Red Sox the same way the Bruins followed up their 3-0 collapse vs. Philly.

Some will blame Tito. Some will blame Theo. Others will chalk it up to injuries or say 'it just wasn't their year'.

I blame the outsourcing of game threads from Joy of Sox as of August 15th. The Sox had stood at 73-47, good for a .608 winning percentage. Since that fateful day, the Sox were 8 games under .500 (17-25) for a woefully poetic .404 average. Yes indeed, a true internet error as the page simply wasn't found.

To be serious for a moment - what an epic bag of fail for this team. I place the blame almost entirely on the pitching staff. It just wasn't deep enough to withstand the injuries and the suck that is John Lackey.

I am just so sad that I did not have my JOS friends around for support as we lost this game and thus lost the season. I went to turn on my computer at around 11 after the kids had gone to sleep, and the server was down for some reason. I couldn't take the time to fix it because I didn't want to miss any of the game. So I had to endure that awful ending all by myself. Of course, then I couldn't sleep most of the night. :(

I can't say I was really surprised. The Rays clearly were the better team all month and after making that comeback, they deserved the win. But how could we lose to Baltimore? And you can imagine that my newly-restored confidence in Papelbon was sorely diminished after last night.

FWIW, I enjoyed the season---at least until September. Nothing will diminish my love for the Sox, and I will patiently wait for April 2012 to start this all over again.

Thanks, Allan and Laura, for once again hosting us here at JOS. I truly don't think I would have been able to watch these last 30 games or so without this group.

FWIW, I enjoyed the season---at least until September. Nothing will diminish my love for the Sox, and I will patiently wait for April 2012 to start this all over again.

Nicely said.

April sucked, September sucked, and in between it was great.

****

Amy, I'm so sorry you had to endure this horrible night alone! I was in class until 9:30, getting text updates from Tim (so I could keep my wifi off and not run out of juice during class!). By the time I left class, we were in the rain delay, and I was home by the time play resumed.

Not to beat a poor dead horse or anything (who me?), but Amy, Papelbon was one of the bright spots of the pitching staff this season. Your fears about him had become a bit ridiculous.

Yes, I agree about Pap. I really had stopped holding my breath sometime back in June! But last night was awful. Shades of the game we watched at JOS1, but with much higher stakes.

Sometimes I get labeled with something (hating Pap, worshiping Tek, being forgetful, not remembering players or recognizing new players), and it is just easier to go with the flow and get teased than to try to say, "Hey, I no longer believe that." So I do know that Tek is over the hill and I do know Pap redeemed himself and I do know Wakefield is done, etc.

(But I truly do not remember old players or recognize new players some of the time!)

Condolences to Allan and board members. It IS only a game, but still...

Not a big Sox fan, but I couldn't help but increasingly follow their fate as Sept. wore on. And last night was a stomach turner for me. Regardless of how Papelbon performed on the field, his post-game comments belie what is truly inside. He is either too emotionally immature or in complete denial; cathartic release would be healthy.

The Orioles celebrating like they won the WS amazed me. More in the manner of a little league team upsetting a major league one.

Changes have to be made. Although Tito's a good manager (though not without faults), it has to start with him.

Will have to wait another year for a possible repeat match up of the '15 Series...

Absolutely agree with the huge vote of thanks to Allan and Laura - this blog, and the comments, are just brilliant parts of being a Red Sox fan. I feel like 2003 was so much worse because it was so sudden, it was such a lovable team, it was so clearly avoidable, and that team would have beaten the Marlins. This one was unique, though, for the bizarre combo of slow, slow, gradual asphyxiation over a whole month, ended by the excruciatingly quick double blow over the course of like six minutes. Fuck. Trust the Sox to come up with an entirely new way to torture us. But we'll be back in 2012 crying "please may I have some more!" Thanks again, to all of you.

It's hard to shake the feeling that losing got into their heads in September, but I think most of what happened comes down to the injuries that decimated the pitching staff all season long - and a lot of the rest of the staff (especially Lackey) sucking beyond all expectations.

One things for sure, I'm going to avoid Boston sports media for the next couple of months. It's vicious and stupid at the best of times, and they're about to have a party. I don't want to see it.

Anyone comparing this to 2003 makes me think he or she did not actually live through 2003. I do not exaggerate when I say that felt like the worst day of my life.

Last night was so far removed from that. It was like 2009 against the Angels or even getting swept by the White Sox in 2005. It was shitty, but we sure saw it coming, and now we move on.

Or maybe -- after 2004 -- how each season ends simply does not matter that much to me anymore. Maybe I like watching Red Sox games and when they stop for the winter, that is the end of them until next spring.

2004 rewired my brain somehow and I am eternally grateful for that. It may still be evolving...

P.S. Firing Francona would make me about 100 times as angry/depressed as I am about this September collapse. It would make about as much sense as extending Lackey's contract for an additional 10 years.

Gonzalez: "It's definitely something that didn't plan for. We were wholly confident that we would make the playoffs but it didn't happen. We didn't do a better job with the lead. I'm a firm believer that God has a plan and it wasn't in his plan for us to move forward. ... God didn't have it in the cards for us."

Crawford: "It's a heartbreaker for us. It was definitely a bad feeling. It's unfortunate we didn't make it. We can only blame ourselves. We put ourselves in this position. ... I know what kind of season I had. I know what I did. I have to go back home and live with that. It's going to be a tough offseason for me. I have to come back and prove myself."

Crawford also said it was "embarrassing personally" to be part of the collapse.

I didn't get on here as often as I would have liked, but for all the work Allan and Laura do to keep this special little community going is really appreciated in this corner of London.

Last night I had a gig (yes, I do a bit of pub singing) and got home at 2am UK time. I saw we were 3-2 up and the MFYs up 7-0. I thought the worst could happen would be a play-off today, so I went to bed (have work). When I saw what happened and how it happened, it was almost as if I was being put out of my misery. In my view it has been the pitching, and if there is any spare blame, I blame the pitching again. The rotation was shot - in many ways Josh's great start papered over cracks. Maybe Josh 2010 would have had the Front Office getting that certain someone who might have made a difference.

But it is what it is, and health etc. willing, I'll be tagging along for the ride in 2012....

At least this year, I saw the Sox win in person. Not sure how I am going to get to a game next year.

Yes, there were injuries and incredibly shitty pitching, but the team did not adjust accordingly. The entire month they played like shit, as a team.

I think the sloppy, sloppy play for that long is pretty ridiculous. I admire Tito's commitment to 'staying the course,' but when the course is headed right over a cliff, change is rather important. He sucked at either shaking things up, or motivating them, or getting them to refocus, or whatever was necessary to get the elite, all-star level players to not play like idiots for an entire month.

I love Tito, but the combination of the weak in-game strategy (mostly involving leaving clearly spent starting pitchers in the game a few batters or even innings too long, and some dumb pinch-running/pinch-hitting choices), and inability to affect change in the players has me feeling quite okay with the idea of a new manager.

On Tuesday, when I asked him about the collapse of the team, Gonzalez blamed the schedule, not the Almighty.

"We play too many night games on getaway days and get into places at 4 in the morning," Gonzalez said. "This has been my toughest season physically because of that. We play a lot of night games on Sunday for television and that those things take a lot out of you."

I told Gonzalez that teams like the Red Sox and Yankees have long had those challenges, it's part of playing for a high-profile team.

"Why does it have to be?" he said. "They can put the Padres on ESPN, too. The schedule really hurt us. Nobody is really reporting that."

I said I wasn't going to do it, but I have begun dissecting September (and the rest of the year), little by little. Looking at WPA tonight.

Bard's WPA was over 2 for April to August, and was just over negative 1 in September. Salty was also about -1 in September. Easily our two worst players. Aceves had a WPA of .634 in Sept.

Although Scutaro raised his avg from .270 to .299 in September (hit .387 with an OPS of 1.019), he posted a basically zero WPA for the month (slightly negative). His WPA for the year was -1.38, I doubt he'll be back.

Despite Ortiz's solid year at the plate, his WPA was only 1.9, yet good enough for 4th on the team behind LBJ, Gonzo and Pedey). Interestingly, he has the worst BR "Clutch" WPA on the team. LBJ is the only Red Sox player with a positive Clutch WPA.

Using BR's Pinch Hit Leverage Index, I am amazed that Darnell MacDonald was used six times as a pinch hitter, seemingly in very high leverage situations (PHlev of 2.19 - 1 is average situation, above is higher lev. second highest on team to craw, but he only has 2 PH PA so small sample size)

It also sounds like this is at least as much Francona's choice as it is a decision of the FO. He says he has had enough..enough of what? Loyal fans? Two World Championships? I read something about complaints about buses---any clue what that is about? And pitchers drinking beer in the dugout on their offdays? Why does this smack of Lackey to me? Or is that just my own dislike of him coloring my interpretation of the story?